Should you wish to combine travelling with education, there’s really no better alternative than an elective placement abroad. Having now arrived back home after 5 weeks in Ghana I admit that I’ve already started planning where to spend next summer. This may give you the impression that I’m an organized person. You’d be wrong. Impatient would probably be more accurate!

Nurses get involved with Doctors on ward rounds in Ghana

Travelling to other countries broadens horizons and experiencing new cultures, food, languages and climates all form a part of this. That sounds like a standard cliché. And it is, sorry. But as a student on a healthcare elective, you will gain a unique perspective of a country which many other tourists and travellers will never see.  It’s almost like an insider’s view of the country and you will learn things which the guidebooks will be ignorant of and see things which no documentary will show. Afternoons spent visiting a psychiatric hospital and hospital mortuary while in Ghana spring to mind. Countless issues will crop up while on placement that will give you a very real sense of the culture of the country. These may be attitudes to death and bereavement, mental health or the degree of poverty that people are contending with. Sometimes even simply listening to a patient’s history will reinforce in your mind how poor the people are. For example, while on the village placement in Ghana, a man arrived at the clinic early one morning after being bitten while he was hunting for rats and other bush meat. Again, it’s a little insight into daily life that most tourists wouldn’t have. I should probably say at this point that at no point in the village experience in Ghana will you be expected to hunt for your food. Or eat a rat for that matter.

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